An empathetic and sensitive girl who found happiness and comfort through animals from a very young age. Fast forward to 2014, she starts working in animal welfare as a full-time job and becomes a voice for countless number of animals. Now in 2021 she is the senior campaigner in the farm animal protection campaign of the NGO Humane Society International/India, where she works to raise public awareness about the condition and welfare of farm animals and the way they are treated. Sally has come a long way in life.

Sally saw that people have a lot of misunderstanding towards animals and the way that they behave around them and the fear and hatred that people have towards them is mainly because of the lack of awareness. She wanted to be someone who brings that awareness in people and to bridge the gap and create a coexistence between humans and animals. She believed that it is a thin line that separates animal welfare from human welfare and being compassionate in our choices is not a difficult thing to do. She thus decided to dedicate her life to being an animal welfare advocate.

Sally’s family always loved animals and she grew up with a lot of animals around her. My first pet was a rooster, whom we called ‘Joe’. People do not usually have farm animals as pets here and they are always seen as commodities that are used for some produce. Having a pet at home is always associated with dogs and cats. Even people who say they love animals, always have this partiality when it comes to a companion animal”- She says. When she was 12 years old, she had an incident where the dog that her family was feeding on the street outside their home was killed by dog catchers and that is when she first decided that she needs to do something to make a difference in the lives of the voiceless.

Sally wanted to be a veterinarian at one point in her life, but destiny had other plans for her. She completed her graduation in journalism and did a para-veterinary course from the Worldwide Veterinary Services in Ooty. It was during that time that she got a chance to attend a workshop conducted by the Animal Welfare Board of India in Bangalore where the Managing Director of Humane Society International/India was one of the guests. At the end of the workshop, she walked away as an Honorary animal welfare officer of the AWBI along with a job at her dream organization of HSI/India. Her life has never been the same ever since and she has been living her passion to help animals on a large scale. Along with her work for the street animals as well as farm animals, Sally is well known for her work for the captive elephants of Kerala. She was appointed as the honorary nominee by the Animal Welfare Board of India, in the captive elephant management committee of Alappuzha and Pathanamthitta districts.

During the years of 2014-2015 there were a lot of street dog killings in Kerala. At that time there were only a handful of people who were into animal welfare in the state. Sally came into media attention during that time with the work that she was doing and became a voice for the street dogs in the state. Sally was awarded by the President of India as one of the 100 women achievers in India in the field of animal welfare, in an event organized by the Ministry of Women and Child Welfare of India in 2016.

She got the name of ‘Pattipiduthakaari’ (dog catcher) and she worked with the state government as a trainer in humane handling of street dogs for animal birth control programs happening in the state. HSI/India also had a program in Malappuram district for 2 years where she worked as the education and awareness officer. The 8-member team that she worked with had a veterinarian and the animal welfare officers who did the dog catching. She used to sit in the back of the vehicle where the dogs that were caught from the street were taken and the way in which the team worked, made a lot of impact on showing the public on how street dogs behave when they are handled and treated with love.

In the year of 2018, when the Kerala floods happened, Sally and her team were involved in the animal rescue in collaboration with the state disaster management department. They got to save so many animals during the disaster and made temporary arrangements to take care of these rescued animals. “The 2018 and 2019 Kerala floods and our work during that time, is something that I can never ever forget in my life. It was heart-warming moments for me and to our entire team when we took the rescued animals back to their homes, to return them to their families, when the water levels came down. We directly experienced so many stories of hope and perseverance and it touched our lives in so many ways’’- She says smilingly.

During the first flood of 2018, the people were not prepared at all and didn’t know what was happening around them. They had to evacuate, and a lot of people ran from their homes taking whatever they could, and, in many cases, the animals were left behind. A lot of them were not even taken out from their cages or cut loose from where they were tethered. We witnessed a lot of very sad sights during the rescue and rehabilitation operation but then during 2019, when the disaster struck again, the people took more care when it came to the animals. There were a lot of campaigns that asked for people to untie their animals in the event of an evacuation. Our organization had a lot of messaging on what people should do during such situations and we got the help of the state government and the media to spread it among the public. The animal husbandry and disaster management department as well as the district administrations were all very supportive to our organization during those times.

In 2019, Sally was voted as one of the 50 most influential people of Kerala by the Kerala Insider magazine. The Malappuram district administration also awarded Sally and her team for all the work done in the district for helping animals. The animal husbandry department of Malappuram acknowledged sally as the best animal welfare activist in the same year.

‘I believe that animal welfare is not a one-person job and needs a lot of networking and teamwork. I get a lot of calls from people every single day about animals that are injured, abandoned, and for different cruelty cases and it is only because of networking and having people who are ready to help that most of those cases get help. Kerala has come a long way when it comes to animal welfare and there are a lot of people who want to make a difference in the lives of animals. I coordinate with them through calls and social media, and we try our best to do whatever is possible to support and help.’’- she says.

She also talks about the cruelty that happens in factory farms towards the animals. Until a few years back, farm animal welfare was something that only animal activists or people who cared about animals talked about but over the years, what happens in such farms is not just an animal welfare issue but also an environmental problem and a human welfare issue. As part of her work as Senior Campaigner in HSI/India for individual outreach, Sally conducts workshops and classes, where she talks to people on creating a change in how they view and treat farm animals. She talks about the 3R policy of replacement, reduction and refinement of animal products from people’s diets and how it impacts sustainability of the planet as a whole. The way that animal agriculture is happening in the world right now is a huge concern and unless people make a difference in how they treat these animals, it is going to affect the entire planet and even be the reason for sparking large scale pandemics in the future. She is always positive that change can be achieved and even though her work involves experiencing a lot of sadness and pain, she is always hopeful towards making the lives of animals better.

“We always want someone else to bring about the changes that we wish to see around us without realizing that we ourselves can be the change makers. We do not have to wait for someone to do something, when we ourselves can take the first step towards making the world a better place, one step at a time. Change might not come immediately, and it might seem like a long road ahead, but at the end of the day, I can at least sleep in peace knowing that I did the best that I could.”- says Sally and ends the interview in an inspiring note.

Words by: Malavika Venugopalan